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Andrew Craigie and The 
Scioto Associates. 

BY 

ARCHER B. HULBERT 



ftmttitan JUniiquarian ^ixtitlti 



Andrew Craigie and The 
Scioto Associates. 

BY 

ARCHER B. HULBERT 



RjEPBINTBD PHOM THB PROCEBDINaa OP THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY 

FOR October, 1913. 



WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A 
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 
1913. 






IN EXCHAW* 



Cc,....C^ ^IY^.^^ -^-<^H 



JUL 



15 i^l4 



,V^^'^ 



ANDREW CRAIGIE AND THE SCIOTO 
ASSOCIATES. 

BY ARCHER B. HULBERT. 



The American Antiquarian Society is fortunate in 
possessing in its archives three large volumes containing 
the correspondence of Andrew Craigie of New York 
and Cambridge with a large circle of business acquaint- 
ances, especially during the first years of the life of the 
Republic, 1787-1790. The most important of these 
correspondents were William Duer, the speculating 
friend of Hamilton's, who may be called, in modern 
phraseology, the first American plunger, Wilham Con- 
stable," Christopher Gore, Joel Barlow, Fisher Ames, 
Brissot de Warville, the French traveller and financier, 
and a score of less well-known men active in the financial 
life of the country at this interesting period. These 
"Craigie Papers," as they are called, are the more 
valuable because they constitute a very mine of infor- 
mation regarding the details which occupied the atten- 
tion of an alert investor and speculator in the early days 
of our economic and financial history at the time when 
Hamilton was estabhshing the financial basis of our 
Nation. Possibly the correspondence of no other man 
of the period engaged actively on the market (not occu- 
pying official position) equally voluminous exists today. 

Andrew Craigie was the typical speculator and rep- 
resents accurately the New England attitude toward the 
Hamilton scheme of funding the national debt and the 
creation of the powerful United States Bank. He had 
the shrewdness of the Yankee, all the versatility of 
resource, all the far-sightedness and with this the ardent 



4 

desire to be true to his friends and fair to all with whom 
he dealt. You will remark that I said he had the 
"desire" to be true and fair; it is easy to criticize, espe- 
cially at a distance of a century and in matters of which 
we can at best have but a very imperfect knowledge. 

The "Craigie Papers" contain very few letters to or 
from William Duer; living together in New York, the 
office of Duer was the scene of their relationship and 
Craigie was at home in the house and family of the 
first noted New York speculator. Their relationship 
must have begun soon after the close of the Revolution, 
for we find Craigie in the sunmier of 1787 going to Lon- 
don as Duer's confidential agent to Daniel Parker. His 
letter of August, 1787 is more valuable in showing his 
relation with Duer than Parker's relations with Duer. 
''I hope you have written to me," reads this letter, 
"fully respecting the several Objects of Speculation which 
we have so often conversed on. You and I have gone 
some great lengths in giving each other proofs of Con- 
fidence and I do not believe either of us will ever have 
occasion to repent of it. I do not pretend however to be 
answerable for the success of my conduct but only for 
the principles which govern it, these being always con- 
sistent with the assurances I have made 5^ou will secure 
me yoiu" friendship whatever be the Event of our Oper- 
ations — but it is with great satisfaction I inform you 
that every thing appears favorable to our views. Do 
my friend devote as much of your time as you can 
possibly spare to the Objects we have in view — give me 
clearly the plans you have digested — and then blame 
me if from inattention they are not executed." This 
letter is of commanding interest because showing the 
lack of information Craigie had; it portrays very clearly 
the kind of a man William Duer was and his secretive 
methods even with intimate business acquaintances. 

The "Craigie Papers" give us little knowledge con- 
cerning the Duer-Parker combination, but Craigie's 
acquaintance with Parker resulted in the meeting in 
America of Craigie and the French traveller and financier 



Brissot, whose investments in American securities were 
financed by Craigie with ability if not without great 
difficulty and anxiety. The papers relating to the 
Brissot investments in the United States Liquidated 
Debt seem to lie between the American Antiquarian 
Society archives and the New York Historical Society 
Library; some of the latter seem to have been taken 
from the Craigie letter books. As a specimen of specu- 
lation in the exciting days when the funding of our debt 
was a great national question, these letters and mem- 
oranda are of great value and it is fortunate, in view of 
the fact that Duer died in jail, and Craigie and Flint 
both failed and Brissot lost his head in the days of 
guillotine activity in Paris, that these are not more scat- 
tered than they are. 

Again, Craigie had important relations with Robert 
Morris and Phelps and Gorham concerning the purchase 
of New York lands. It is unfortunate that only a few 
of the "Craigie Papers" relate to these notable land 
speculations; those which do are of priceless value. 
There are a mass of letters between Craigie and his 
brother-in-law Foster concerning the purchase and 
furnishing of the now famous Craigie house in Cam- 
bridge, where the almost penniless speculator spent 
his last years and from which, rumor still has it in Cam- 
bridge, he often dared not stir because of the lynx-eyed 
sheriff's careful watch. This interesting house has 
been carefully described, evidently with these papers 
as the basis of investigation, in the American Antiqua- 
rian Society Proceedings for April, 1900. 

About 1784 Craigie was turning from the wholesale 
apothecary trade to the general field of speculation. 
In the year following, for instance, he was sending 
gunpowder tea to China and elsewhere and broadening 
his interests generally until by 1790 his account books, 
also fortunately preserved, show a multitudinous busi- 
ness connection and a correspondence with upwards of 
fifty persons, of which some six hundred letters still 
exist. The bulk of this correspondence may be divided 



6 

into three classes: first, private business and family 
letters; second, letters concerning speculations carried 
on by the Trustees to the Proprietors of the Scioto 
lands; and third (really a sub-division of the second), 
letters relating to the French emigrants en route from 
France to the Scioto lands. 

I have elsewhere treated the general speculations of 
the Trustees in a paper entitled ''The Methods and 
Operations of the Scioto Group of Speculators," fully 
one- third of the facts being derived from the ''Craigie 
Papers." In the present paper I wish to point out the 
value of the Craigie letters concerning the French 
emigrants ; for although hundreds of articles, books and 
pamphlets have covered their unique story, a new series 
of concrete facts are to be found in the "Craigie Papers. " 
The national service which the American Antiquarian 
Society offers to perform in historical fields is well 
illustrated in the present instance, for a true history of 
one of the unique phases of Ohio history can only be 
written within these walls. 

One hundred and twenty-seven years ago last Jan- 
uary in a Worcester County farm house, that of General 
Rufus Putnam in Rutland, General Putnam and Gen- 
eral Benjamin Tupper issued a call for a meeting of 
Revolutionary soldiers holding Continental certificates 
to elect representatives who should meet and form an 
Association to purchase from the United States a great 
tract of land on the Ohio River. On March 1, 1786, 
the meeting of delegates took place at the Bunch of 
Grapes Tavern in Boston, where on March 3, was formed 
the Ohio Company of Associates. By July of the year 
following, the agents of this Association, notably the 
Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Ipswich, secured both the con- 
tract for the purchase of western lands and an organic 
law, the Ordinance of 1787, to govern the region between 
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes. 
This was a diplomatic feat of no small magnitude and it 
could not have been accomplished without the aid of 
the shrewd New York speculator, William Duer. The 



Associates could not agree to purchase more than a 
million and a half acres at 66 % cents per acre. The 
Committee of Congress held that the policy to sell the 
ceded western lands to pay the Revolutionary debt 
needed the eclat of a more notable transaction than the 
sale of a paltry one-and-one-half million acres. Duer 
agreed, however, (provided the Associates would contract 
for six million acres) to take the residue, four and one- 
half millions, as a speculation, paying for it at the same 
rate in six installments. Two contracts therefore were 
signed by Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent, one 
for the lesser acreage on behalf of the Ohio Company 
of Associates, and one on behalf of themselves and un- 
named associates for four and one-half million acres. 

Thus there came into existence what has without 
authority been called the Scioto Company from the fact 
that the acreage called for in the option included rich 
Scioto Valley prairie lands. All that had existence in 
fact was the option on the lands. The Trustees to the 
Proprietors of the Scioto Lands owed the long terms 
of payment secured to the high character and known 
honesty of the men who represented the Ohio Company 
of Associates who signed the original contract and who 
paid half a million dollars down, a quarter of which Duer 
supplied. These trustees were William Duer and 
certain of his friends, notably, Andrew Craigie and 
Royal Flint, also a Boston merchant living in New York. 

Selling western lands to foreigners or securing foreign 
labor to clear and till western land was a popular policy. 
From the time of William Penn the colonies and the 
eddying frontier had heard alien tongues; Washington 
seriously considered the importation of Palatines to 
people his own western lands. The speculation entered 
into by Cutler and Sargent in co-operation with Duer, 
Flint and Craigie as the active partners, was originally 
planned as a colonization scheme; a European agency 
was mentioned prior to the securing of the contract of 
sale from Congress.^ The Scioto speculation was, of 

> Life of Manaaaeh, CtUler, I, ch. xii. 



8 

course, one of the schemes famiharly discussed between 
Duer and Craigie, and Parker participated not only in 
the tricky plan of borrowing money abroad by giving 
title to unpaid-for-lands as security, but in securing 
emigrants. Flint first, then Joel Barlow, was suggested 
as agent to Europe, and Barlow at length sailed in the 
spring of 1788. The leading facts of Barlow's experi- 
ences have been brought out by Belote, Todd, Sibley 
and others ; by dint of exceeding his instructions through 
lack of proper advice from America, some six hundred 
French emigrants were crossing the Atlantic in the 
spring of 1790, arriving at Philadelphia, Alexandria, 
Va., and elsewhere, from March to May. Undoubtedly 
a quantity of false sympathy has been wasted on these 
emigrants. It is probable that the Compagnie du 
Scioto, formed in Paris, exaggerated the prospects of 
emigrants to the Scioto region, but those who have 
examined the information have done so with the purpose 
of exposing exaggeration; the result being equal exagger- 
ation. For instance, few or no accounts spare pathetic 
adjectives in commenting on the fact that the emigrants 
had invested their earthly all in their adventure, where- 
as, we have absolute proof that little or no actual money 
was needed to purchase the land-claims which they 
acquired. 2 

Barlow did not seem to grasp the idea that he rep- 
resented speculators who only desired to turn over their 
money; Duer never for an instant had the notion of co- 
operating in good faith with the Ohio Company of 
Associates by developing his purchase. It is a very 
pretty illustration of the age to see on the one hand the 
plain Worcester County farmers composing the Ohio 
Associates go ahead and send their ox-teams across the 
Allegheny snows, float their boats on the ice-filled Ohio, 
found their city of Marietta and organize a government 
on the basis of their option on a million and a half acres 
and make a reasonable success of their venture, while, 
on the other hand, the New York speculator, not intend- 

• Patriate Francais, Apr. 29, 1790. 



9 

ing to create a dollar of wealth, schemes his schemes like 
an 18th century Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford and floun- 
ders about in the net of his selfish speculations until 
the prison cell and death complete his gigantic failure. 

Barlow decided that if he could not sell the option 
en bloc he had better make a lodgment of Frenchmen 
at any price on the lands in question. If the oppor- 
tunity offered that likelihood of success which its pro- 
motors prophesied, the result of the experiment would 
prove it instantly once and for all. If the six hundred 
emigrants were once settled happily on the Scioto soil 
and were satisfied, he estimated that their report to 
France would inaugurate an emigration the like of which 
the Old World had never seen — and he was right. I 
am holding no brief for Joel Barlow, nor do I seek excuse 
or palliation for his eccentricities of a business nature 
or his misjudgment of men. But I do hold that his 
course proves that he believed in the honesty and 
practicability of the scheme of colonization which he 
represented to the French people; he was willing to 
submit the whole project to a test; he was sure that if 
the test was met and resulted favorably there was no 
end to the profit to be realized. You may think what 
you may of Barlow, but you cannot beheve that he 
knew he was foisting a hoax on the French people and 
yet at the same time was willing to put the whole thing 
to the only real test possible, actual emigration. Nor 
can we hold the oft-repeated opinion that he was an 
impracticable visionary in view of the proof that in only 
four years after giving up the Scioto land scheme he 
made and safely invested a fortune equivalent in our 
day to more than three hundred thousand dollars. At 
any rate the French six hundred sailed from Havre to 
meet their Balaklava in America. 

I will not venture on the resiliency of your imagination 
to ask you to consider William Duer's amazement to 
find six hundred excitable French men and women on 
his hands, each carrying a deed to Scioto lands of which 
Duer did not own a single inch. In his alarm, chagrin, 



10 

and amazement, he lost sight of the poetic Barlow's 
vision. In point of fact he had an opportunity such as 
is granted to few men. His contract with Congress was 
invaluable. Those Scioto lands were as rich as any 
exaggerated account of them ever printed. Instead of 
rising to his opportunity like a man of genius, Duer sank 
to the depths of pettifogging procrastination. Oddly 
enough the story of this extraordinary episode is con- 
tained in good part in the ''Craigie Papers," supple- 
mented by the '^Gallipolis Papers" in the archives of 
the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. 

Craigie's connection with the land speculation side of 
the operations of the Scioto Group and Barlow's mission 
was very slight, although his participation on the 
general speculation side had been active. He had gone 
into "the concern," he wrote Parker, for the purpose of 
strengthening his ''union with Duer. "^ I find nothing 
relating to Barlow or his mission in Craigie's corre- 
spondence until the expected arrival of the French in 
America; he then wrote Barlow (in reply to a letter 
upbraiding him for failure to keep Barlow advised) 
typically denying any sense of responsibility in the 
affair. But the arrival of the French brought amazing 
responsibilities to the whole coterie of Scioto speculators. 
Why Craigie should suddenly have become so involved 
in their affairs I am at a loss to explain; it may be he 
agreed to act the r61e of a foil for Duer ; it is more likely 
that the actual agents on the spot, Major Guion, Franks 
and Porter, found Craigie a more responsive and con- 
sciencious trustee than anyone else and acted accord- 
ingly. The choosing of this latter alternative does not 
necessarily preclude the partial acceptance of the 
former. 

Barlow had recognized the crux of the situation and 
felt an instinctive fear that all would not be well. He 
realized at once that for practical emigration purposes 
the Marietta pioneers were his main hope. As early 
as November 29, he wrote Duer advising what directions 



• Craigie Papers, I, 11. 



11 

should be sent to the Ohio colonists under Putnam.'* 
Early in December he wrote beseeching letters to Duer 
and Flint, enclosing an open letter to any of the prom- 
inent members of the Ohio Company of Associates.^ 
But the Ohio Company itself was in great straits to meet 
the second payment due on its contract with Congress 
at this moment, having no legal right to the lands 
already settled until complete payment was made. 
Craigie's letter to John Holker of March IP shows that 
a compromise effort was being made with members of 
Congress. To Frazier on the same date Craigie warns 
his correspondents to secrecy pending the "arrange- 
ments" being "made here" [New York].^ Already the 
vanguard of some eighteen who sailed from Havre late 
in the previous year^ were in Philadelphia and Col. 
David S. Franks was engaged to go to Alexandria with 
some of these and prepare for the arrival of the remain- 
der. Holker is urged to secrecy. Each emigrant, he 
is told, is in possession of "a book or map of the land"; 
these he is to secure if possible lest "impertinent people" 
get hold of them. Certainly this was a justifiable 
curiosity on the part of the Scioto Trustees to learn what 
lands these foreigners had bought from them, especially 
in view of the fact that they possessed none at all. The 
reference here is doubtless to the publication issued 
by the Compagnie du Scioto and which is described by 
numerous writers as an exaggerated account of the rich- 
ness and desirability of the Scioto region. Members of 
the Antiquarian Society will recall the article on Dr. 
Anthony Saugrain in the Proceedings of April, 1897. 
Saugrain, who had toured the Ohio Valley, was a mem- 
ber of the Scioto emigration party. That deception 
could have influenced such a man and his friends is 
unreasonable. And surely no exaggeration could exceed 
the preposterous letter sent to Claviere by Brissot from 



* Barlow to Duer, Scioto Papers in N. Y. Public Library. 
» Craigie Papers, II, 42. 

*Tdem, I, 50. 
Udem, I, 52. 

• Gallipolis Papers, I, 49, 139. 



12 

Philadelphia, stating that 80,000 families in America 
by making 1,500 lbs. of maple sugar per year each could 
ruin the sugar trade of slave-ridden St. Domingo by 
supplanting it. 

By March 17, Franks had gotten all but two of his 
Frenchmen off for Baltimore; the Musician and the 
Saddler preferred Philadelphia and Franks had had diffi- 
culty already reconciling disputes among themselves 
and disengaging some who had bound themselves to 
master tradesmen.^ Members of the French colony in 
Philadelphia took pains to decry the swindUng that the 
Compagnie du Scioto had been guilty of in France. But 
Brissot's scathing criticisms of the French in Phila- 
delphia, a year previous, inclines one to believe that 
Franks and Porter were dealing with an unruly crew, 
itself under the bad influences of acclimated French 
very much opposed to things American.^" 

At the same time, the Craigie correspondence shows 
the New York speculating trustees, Duer, Craigie and 
Flint in a remarkable light. Could access be had to 
Duer's correspondence with Franks the m.atter would 
appear more plainly; the reader is dumbfounded rather 
than informed by the Craigie-Porter letters. Franks 
was engaged by Duer, and Porter, the Alexandria mer- 
chant, acted rather as a representative of Craigie. 
Business relations between him and Daniel Parker & 
Co. of London made it useful to him to befriend Craigie 
in the matter of the emigrants in order to deserve a 
friend at Court in the adjustment of Parker's affairs. 
Porter's experience with Craigie, as Craigie's must have 
been with Duer, is beyond explanation. For instance, 
the endeavor was made to cover the entire transaction 
with a veil of secrecy. The emJ grants, even in Phila- 
delphia, were sworn to secrecy as to destination, prices 
paid for lands, relationship with the Compagnie du Scioto, 
etc. This, of course, became a jest and made matters 
more awkward for Franks and Porter. More success 



• Craigie Papera, III, 27. 
»« Idem III, 2S. 



13 

was attained in shielding Duer and Craigie. Writing 
to Craigie of his disappointment over the circulation in 
Philadelphia of copies of the prospectus issued to the 
emigrants at Paris, Franks adds: "One thing which 
may take off from the disagreeableness of the above 
mentioned Circumstance is, that no Man, io whom I hold 
myself accountable at New York is known or even sur- 
mised. Mr. Barlow's name and agency are also utterly 
unknown to the PubHc."^^ Though Craigie may not 
have been concerned financially with Duer in the Scioto 
Association, there can be no question that he would have 
profited largely had the speculation succeeded; he had 
everything to gain and nothing to lose. The moral 
obligation he owed, at least to Porter who bore the 
brunt of exasperating labors at Alexandria, he very 
largely ignored. He let numerous letters lie unanswered 
when circumstances made inaction on Porter's part 
morally impossible. Porter was Craigie's prospector 
at the end of the rope over the cliff; if he found gold he 
would-be pulled up, if not he would be dropped. Duer 
treated Franks with the same inconsequentiality that 
was given Barlow in France. Throughout March he 
received not a line of advice or direction from New 
York; "every post," he writes, "has brought me nothing 
but disappointment. "^^ The silence extended over April 
12, in all some 42 days without a line of ad vice. ^^ Duer's 
treatment of General Putnam was flagrantly inconse- 
quential even while the latter was advancing four 
thousand dollars which he was never refunded. It is 
exasperating to know that Duer was even now promoting 
a Maine land speculation and putting into it seventeen 
thousand dollars for a three hundred per cent, profit, 
while Putnam was sinking four thousand dollars and 
Porter and Franks were left to be sued by waggoners 
for transportation of the emigrants.^* This shows 
Duer's character. Craigie was not a partner in the 

" Franks to Craigie, 26 March, 1790. Craigie Papers, HI, 28. 

"Franks to Craigie, 31 March. Idem, HI, 29. 

'» Franks to Craigie, 12 April. Idem, HI, 30 

" Franks to Craigie, 20 April, 1792. Idem, III, 31. 



14 

Maine land scheme and evidently knew nothing of it; 
Flint, however, was an active agent. Franks plainly 
took all steps to shield the Trustees from discovery; 
whether because the latter feared to be held responsible 
for the terms of sale granted by the Compagnie du Scioto 
or because they feared being compelled to fulfill the 
French company's promise concerning placing the 
immigrants on their land, or both, is not perfectly clear. 
In Franks' letter of the 9th we learn for the first time 
that the character of the mysterious negotiations being 
carried on with Congress was in the form of a Memorial 
from Franks himself to Congress which was in the hands 
of Colonel Wadsworth. No copy of this document or 
any committee report on it appears in the Papers of the 
Continental Congress. 

Porter's and Franks' difficulties were two-fold: to 
keep the company intact and to aid Guion in forwarding 
the emigrants across the mountains. In a number of 
cases Franks had to employ ^'douceur" to disengage some 
of the emigrants from agreements made with master- 
tradesmen. As to the moving westward, Franks, and 
Porter finally, effected an agreement. The emigrants 
had demanded that the Company pay their board at 
Alexandria until the day of departure; that they and 
their baggage be transported to the Scioto, board and 
lodging to be included en route at the rate of twenty-one 
shillings per head ; that the women and children be trans- 
ported in carriages and the sick taken in ambulances 
accompanied by physician and nurse; that all proprietors 
be furnished with two horses, two cows, and a plough, for 
250 livl^s. With unimportant exceptions Franks agreed 
to the stipulation; the emigrants were granted another 
year in which to make their second payment on their 
lands; extra lots and the pacification of the Indians were 
promised. Major Guion left Alexandria with the 
vanguard (150) on June 29.^^ 



•• Sibley aflBrms that on the acceptance of the terms of treaty with Franks all claims 
against the Company, made in Paris, were annulled. The French Five Hundred and 
OtherPapera, 38; Craigie Papers, II, 153. 



15 

The usual statement made that the French emigrants 
were not met on their arrival in America by represen- 
tatives of the Scioto Trustees is modified by a study of 
the **Craigie Papers"; we have seen that Franks met the 
advance party in Philadelphia and conducted them 
southward; by Porter's letter of May 5, we learn of his 
assiduity in caring for the shiploads that came up the 
Potomac to Alexandria. Putting the facts together it 
is plain that the French were met and provided for, but 
that the agents obeyed their employers in New York by 
keeping their names and sponsorship secret. Porter's 
anxiety appears in his remark to Craigie, '' 'Tis eno' 
[enough] to say that they are here and that if some per- 
son is not immediately exhibited to them who will under- 
take to conduct them the design of the Company will 
be extremely injured." With reference to my previous 
statement concerning Barlow's faith in the result of a 
successful trial of the emigration experiment, I quote 
again from Porter to Craigie on May 5: "It only 
remain^ for the Company to effect a good settlement of 
these and those coming, to bring out as many as are 
wished for." Several side-lights are thrown on the 
character of the French emigrants ; some are said to have 
been taken out of jails; Count Du Barth desired to secure 
some formal protection of himself and property by Con- 
gress nominally against the Indians but really against 
the emigrants themselves. ''You must smother this 
idea," writes Porter to Craigie, "and let the Indians 
be the ostensible reason of granting the aid." The 
correspondence under review shows the Scioto emigrants 
came in smaller parties and a larger number of ships than 
has been reported. The following ships are not men- 
tioned in previous accounts: the "Endeavor," "Re- 
covery," "Patriot," and "Liberty." At least fifty 
emigrants came bound for three years to the Company 
and numbers were bound for a year to the ship owners. 
Misrepresentations regarding the length and cost of the 
journey from the Potomac to the Scioto in the printed 
documents put in their hands in Paris first aroused the 



16 

ire of the emigrants, and the fact that they sensed the 
inconsistency of not being met by official representatives 
is shown by their suspicious treatment of the interpreter 
provided. No wonder Porter wrote that the "Enghsh 
tongue" makes ''but a miserable figure among 500 
French Men." 

On the 14th day of May, Porter learns finally that 
General Putnam is not coming to lead the emigrants 
to the Ohio. As early as March 26th a letter to Porter 
shows that Putnam was promised as the leader of the 
Colony and there is nothing to show in the whole range 
of Ohio or Scioto correspondence an intention of his 
leading the Company; yet the emigrants had hardly 
landed ere he was held out to them as the cure-all for 
their troubles and the Moses of their pilgrimage. The 
correspondence for this month of May is a very comedy. 
Porter, who assumed at Craigie's request the office of 
general factotum at Alexandria out of friendship for 
Craigie, writes seven letters, some three pages in length, 
imploring that an authorized agent be sent there, that 
measures be taken to quell the rebellious spirit of the 
emigrants by meeting their demands half-way, that the 
promised leader in the migration be sent on, that ar- 
rangements be made for the wilderness voyage to the 
Ohio — and every letter begs for a reply to the last. In the 
face of all this Craigie writes Joel Barlow on the 24th 
of the month : "Every exertion has been made to realize 
in the fullest manner the expectations of the Settlers and 
they are generally as happy as men can be. The treat- 
ment thay have received here has not in any respect 
been short of what your most sanguine wishes could 
have aimed at."^^ No wonder Porter should write 
Craigie in the next fortnight; "I declare to you, my 
friend, that my present situation is extremely unpleasant 

and my not hearing from you 

speaks a certain something that mortifies and wounds 
me to the very Soul. " And on the last day of the month 
Porter sends the following frank statement which sums 



" Craigie Papers, I, 60. 



^ 



■v%-'** 



17 

up the point I wish to make in this paper. After chiding 
Craigie for sending cautious advice not to become too 
involved in the Scioto affair (which, if sent at all, should 
have reached Porter three months earlier) Porter re- 
marks, "How far the Conduct of the agents in France 
has been marked with regularity or propriety — I know 
not — but in this Country the business has been conducted 
in a very improper manner." Thirty-five days later 
Craigie writes Porter: "You wonder that my caution 
should come so late — it was as I thought in season, as 
soon as I discovered the arrangements you were entering 
into I wrote you — enough is said — the least said is 
enough to the wise and I am happy in writing to such 

I thank you for your good opinion of my 

prudence. I wish it may carry me through and fix me 
down at least in a tranquil situation — I was not made 
to battle — it is high time I was in port. " 

The "Craigie Papers" prove conclusively that the 
ancient claim that Barlow's irregularities and the 
alleged embezzlement of his Paris confreres cannot longer 
shield the American trustees from behavior as atrocious 
as that attributed to any European representatives. 
Either Duer, Craigie and Flint should have disowned 
the actions of the Compagnie du Scioto frankly and fairly 
before the world, or should have acted as Craigie rep- 
resented to Barlow in the letter of May 24th that they 
had acted. Craigie's letters put the whole Scioto fiasco 
in a new light which is interesting and valuable so far 
as it illustrates the conscience of the iVmerican speculat- 
ors of the eighteenth century. 












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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I l|l li||||| III : II II I III 11 




